The Nurse With an Unexpected Behavior, Book Review Example

‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ is a novel written by Ken Kesey. The novel explores the battle between a former army nurse, Nurse Ratched, and her patients. She was placed in charge of a psychiatric hospital, where she does not depict a good head or rather a good nurse. The novel reveals some negative traits about her on her conduct and attitude. She was very rude and rarely used polite words or those that showed care. The first three chapters introduce the novel and reveal the behavior of the main characters involved. The narrator, Chief Bromden, was one of the patients in the asylum. He was nicknamed ‘chief broom’ because the assistants made him sweep the hallways for them. Chief pretends to be deaf and mute, which makes him able to gather enough information other than the cruel treatment he received in the hospital. The novel was written at a time when society valued respect and god moral conduct. In retrospect, this paper examines how the relationship between nurse Ratched and her colleagues and how she offers services to her patient.

Studying the first three chapters gives one the knowledge about the activities in the hospital and the nature and behavior of the characters, especially nurse Ratched whose behavior is mainly studied.  The chapters introduce the main characters in the novel and part of the services offered to patients. Also told are the types of patients in the hospital and their treatment procedures. We are also able to tell, from these chapters, how almost every main character in the novel behaves. The naming system, including the nicknames, is also a system we can learn from these three chapters since the names signify something. Chapters one and two are slightly different from chapter three because the behavior of nurse Ratched is not that bad in chapter three. In Chapter One, she sounds harsh and dictating in nature, while in the third chapter, she appears as caring and someone who follows the rules. Generally, nurse Ratched is portrayed as a rude and arrogant nurse in the first three chapters. She dictates and orders everyone around without fearing anybody. She makes Chief Bromden very terrified, which should not be expected of a nurse. Chief Bromden says that it was still hard for him to have a clear mind thinking about it (Kesey, 13). He decides to move on and ignore the terrifying experiences. In the early 1960s, women were depicted as caring, loving, and sensitive. They were also decent and not involved in a lot of activities involving ordering people. Nurse Ratched does not exhibit any of these qualities. She uses harsh and scary words, and she was not sensitive to the need of the patients. At the beginning of the novel, when she walks in, the mode of make-up that she has does not show decency regarding the early 1960s. The orderlies are bullies who follow strictly what nurse Ratched orders. Orderlies are not expected to bully patients by making them sweep for them. This showed an attitude contrary to that expected. They did not also show care and followed even the cruel instructions without being on the side of the patients. Chief Bromden says that everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down (Kesey, 16). He offers this piece of advice to indicate how cruel the world around can be. In the novel, the terminology used is modified and seems only to be interpreted by the patients. An example is when McMurphy said, “bull goose loony,” which was like a question asking about the Acutes leader. Chief Bromden says that he knows that nobody is very big in the first place (Kesey, 19). This quote encourages the readers since they are able to obtain the mentality of being able no matter how big the mountain seems. In the 1960s, society had a basic structure of the things women or men were supposed to do and what they were not supposed to do. The novel does not follow this structure since we see nurse Ratched taking the doctors’ roles and ordering people. Women were not supposed to command people but were supposed to be kind and submissive.

There was a lot of drama experienced in the psychiatric hospital. However, some of the values are not followed appropriately since most of the societal expectations of a literary novel is to improve values. The novel has portions that do not uphold the value of fluent language. A literary novel is expected to be updated on the kind of language used to help the readers enjoy the skill. Nurse Ratched is also depicted in a negative way other than that expected by society. She is not polite and controls everything as she pleases. Society expects nurses, especially women, to be caring and to uphold high values of politeness. Chief Bromden exhibits wisdom, and he shows an excellent example of how wisdom can be used to gather more information. He pretended to be deaf to hear what was being said about him. This encourages the readers and instills the skill of using wisdom and how to escape some ordeals.

Work Cited

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Penguin, 1962. https://www.sanjuan.edu/cms/lib/CA01902727/Centricity/Domain/334/One%20Flew%20Over%20the.pdf